Ratings site tests patience

Tuesday

Sep 29, 2009 at 12:01 AMSep 29, 2009 at 12:00 PM

By RANDY COHEN

My listing on ratemyprofessors.com has a few positive ratings, but most are from students who gripe about the workload and the density of my lectures. May I suggest to my more-satisfied students that they post a rating on the Web site?

— Name withheld, California

It is no doubt irksome to read this roster of grousing when you are sure many students benefit from your class, but that does not justify your skewing the results, which is what you propose. (Didn’t that happen at the Nixon White House? His aides massaged the responses on ratemypresident.com?) You’d do better simply to read the comments, use them as an opportunity to improve your teaching and then have a glass of wine. Or two.

I consulted a history professor at the City University of New York who shares your discomfort with such sites and describes an unfortunate influence they have: “I hate the ratings-popularity culture that has infected teaching and am lucky enough and privileged enough to be able to basically ignore it.” He’s tenured.

An astrophysicist at Columbia was more jaundiced. “Students with a vendetta against a teacher will be more motivated to post to R.M.P. than students who were satisfied with the course,” he said. “As far as I know about R.M.P., there is no way for the teacher to respond.” He adds that “given the flaws in the R.M.P. systems, what the teacher is suggesting is her only way to protect her reputation.”

I sympathize with their and your frustration but do not endorse the astrophysicist’s solution. A teacher’s reputation is not dependent on such Web sites. Even if those whiny evaluations affect course-enrollment numbers or even hiring and promotion, surely your colleagues realize these sites do not provide a scientific survey of student views. In any case, as the CUNY prof put it, “Cooking the books on the rating does not seem the way to go.”

»My daughter attended a small liberal-arts college in the United States that spends 25 percent of tuition funds on grants, scholarships, etc., none of which she received, although some were available to her. My wife and I strongly believe this is forced charity, a redistribution of funds and hence unethical. We give to charity and support our alma maters, but that is voluntary. Shouldn’t the school simply cut its tuition by 25 percent?

— Keith WicksWiesbaden, Germany

To rephrase your question: Is it honorable for a school to apply tuition money to scholarships? It is. And to salaries for the staff, beakers for the chem lab and trombones for the band. Such expenditures are made by nearly every college, and quite rightly. And I’d be surprised if tuition payments alone can cover them.

A school has an interest in assembling a first-rate student body, but scholastic merit does not correlate with an applicant’s family income — hence scholarships. This laudable policy benefits both the students who receive scholarships and those, like your daughter, who pay full freight and get to be a part of this community. The school’s duty is not to charge the lowest possible tuition but to provide the best possible education and make it available to the greatest number of students capable of doing the work. That’s one reason many of the Ivies are going “need blind,” so no student is rejected because of financial need.

If you found the policies of this college morally offensive, you could have encouraged your daughter to attend another, maybe one with the inspiring Latin motto: Nullus admittendus pauper.